Global Movement & Community of Practice hosted by Unity Effect
Evaluation that gives more energy than it takes
We are a global network of practitioners, funders, evaluators, and researchers co-creating an approach to inquiry rooted in living systems. Rigorous about evidence, honest about power, and dedicated to the mutual flourishing of people and planet.
At a glance
250+ Practitioners
A growing global community across foundations, NGOs, evaluation societies, and networks.
3+ years
Of collective inquiry, thematic dialogues, writing circles and case clinics
1 Living Framework
9 guiding principles and 7 core practices offering an open-source compass for life-affirming inquiry.
100% Open Source
Published under CC BY-SA 5.0 - free to use, remix, adapt, and share
Measuring for life, not for compliance
Traditional evaluation was built for a world of linear control, often reducing complex social change to rigid metrics and extractive reporting cycles. But living systems do not evolve through spreadsheets.
Regenerative Evaluation shifts our focus from proving compliance to cultivating systemic vitality. It transforms measurement into a strategic ally—helping organizations, networks, and communities listen deeply, navigate uncertainty, and align their daily practices with their highest aspirations.
A compass for designing your evaluation practice
These principles shape both the intention and the practice of evaluation as a life-affirming endeavour. They offer orientation for engaging with complexity, nurturing relationships and cultivating systemic vitality across very different contexts.
1
Align with the cyclical rhythms of life
Honours periods of wintering (rest) and composting (stopping what no longer serves). Evaluate at the speed of life, not the speed of machines.
2
Cultivate self-awareness & reflexivity
Evaluators are never neutral observers but active participants. Relational accountability replaces the illusion of objectivity.
3
Time as teacher
Honour the deep past, including colonial histories and institutional memory, while nurturing life-affirming futures.
4
Shift power, centre marginalised voices
Transition ownership of evaluation to the communities concerned — human and more-than-human.
5
Honour place, story and lived experience
Reject copy-paste solutions in favour of context-specific inquiry rooted in place and lived experience.
6
Nurture system vitality
Focus on the health of relationships, flows and feedback loops within a system, not only on isolated outputs.
7
Unearth and amplify innate potential
Move beyond a deficit mindset to identify the strengths, assets and latent capacity already present.
8
Embrace iterative learning and emergence
Shift from predict-and-control to sense-and-respond, letting evidence and strategy evolve together.
9
Centre love as a force for transformation
Evaluation as a fierce commitment to the flourishing of the system and everyone within it.
The Living Paper (launched in March 2026)
Regenerative Evaluation: Influences, Pathways & Practices
A living harvest of two and a half years of global dialogue, case clinics, and real-world practice.
The Living Paper bridges deep theoretical roots with hands-on fieldwork. It weaves together 9 guiding principles, 7 core practices, practical systemic frameworks, a curated mosaic of methods, and honest case studies from the ground. It is an open-source working companion: an invitation to bring your own live questions, test new approaches in your work, and help shape an evaluation practice in service of life.
What is inside
- Theoretical Roots & Lineages. Grounded in systems thinking, Indigenous wisdom, complexity science, and decolonial scholarship.
- The Living Compass. 9 guiding principles and 7 core practices spanning design, data collection, and sense-making
- Systemic Frameworks. Practical models to help map complex change, rethink scaling beyond simple growth, and ground evaluation in context.
- The Methods Mosaic. Practical guidance on combining qualitative, quantitative, and participatory tools.
- Field Case Studies. Real-world reflections and lessons learned from active mandates and networks.
Short versions
EN
Short Version
Regenerative Evaluation: Evaluation in Service of Life
Download Short Version (EN)DE
Kurzfassung
Regenerative Evaluierung: Evaluation im Dienst des Lebens
Download Kurzfassung (DE)
“I think I’ve never seen anything like this before. It is so comprehensive and systemic, integrative and regenerative, simply wonderful. I’ve just finished reading it and can only say THANK YOU to everyone currently involved, and to all those from whom we have inherited so much and had the chance to learn. I’m really looking forward to applying some of it. A deep bow!”
— Co-Founder & Co-Managing Director of the Inner Green Deal “I love and am incredibly grateful that I stumbled across Jannik’s article — ‘Measurement as a Generative Practice’ — and the community of practice it inspired. Such an unexpected gift! It’s been a space to share, reflect, and connect with people from around the world who hold similar values and questions about the evaluation field. For me, it has been healing, energizing, and inspiring — helping me revisit ideas I’ve held, learn from others, and bring much-needed renewed energy to myself and my work!”
— Founder, Fresh Insights
Experiments in Regenerative Evaluation
What happens when these living principles touch the messy reality of daily practice?
This autumn, we are opening up space for this exact inquiry through a 5-week public event series: Experiments in Regenerative Evaluation.
We are bringing together practitioners and co-hosts from across global evaluation networks to look closely at active, real-world projects. Across four 90-minute online sessions, we will dive into live inquiries around power dynamics, community co-ownership, financial governance, and future foresight. Each session is structured around experience sharing followed by joint sense-making and dialogue, featuring a 60-minute soft exit so you can participate even if your schedule only allows for an hour.
- Sign up for Navigating Power Dynamics & Institutional Tensions in Evaluation
Navigating Power Dynamics & Institutional Tensions in Evaluation
Exploring power vacuums vs. relational safety, and how evaluators mediate funder and board tensions. Co-Hosts: Claire Sivier (TIALT), Rory Crawford (Nature Towns & Cities), Jannik Kaiser (Unity Effect)
- Sign up for Beyond Community Participation: Shifting Ownership Across the Evaluation Lifecycle
Beyond Community Participation: Shifting Ownership Across the Evaluation Lifecycle
Moving from late-stage consultation to true co-ownership across the entire evaluation lifecycle. Co-Hosts: Bhargavi Thakur (Independent Consultant), Jannik Kaiser (Unity Effect)
- Sign up for Sensing What is Emerging: Integrating Future Foresight & New Horizons for the MEL Profession
Sensing What is Emerging: Integrating Future Foresight & New Horizons for the MEL Profession
Integrating future foresight methods, cultivating practitioner capacities, and steering the future of MEL. Co-Hosts: Mylène Pacot & Andrea Esteve Pedró (Co-Researchers, Sensing What Is Emerging Collective Learning Lab), Jannik Kaiser (Unity Effect)
- Sign up for Evaluating the Intangible: Capturing Relational Shifts in Network Leadership
Evaluating the Intangible: Capturing Relational Shifts in Network Leadership
Tracking how inner capacities reshape leadership practice, and the mixed-methods design that makes intangible relational shifts credible. Co-Hosts: Carri Munn & Nono Sekhoto (Circle Generation), Jannik Kaiser (Unity Effect)
Five Ways to Work With Us
Regenerative Evaluation is moving rapidly from an emerging inquiry into field-tested application. Whether you are looking to evolve your organization's internal MEL culture, commission a trusted team of senior evaluators for an active tender, or resource the global movement, we build custom partnerships designed to navigate complexity with rigor and care.
Renewing Internal Evaluation Strategy
Through Unity Effect’s advisory pathway, Regenerate Your Evaluation Strategy, we guide leadership teams and MEL managers to transition away from rigid logframes toward living evaluation systems. We help build internal capacity, shift team culture, and align your daily measurement practices with systemic vitality.
Commission a Regenerative Evaluation
Skip the noise of generic proposals. We bring interdisciplinary teams of trusted senior evaluators and specialists together from our global Community of Practice to design and implement holistic, participatory evaluations. Anchored in our regenerative principles and practices, our proposals combine technical rigor, relational accountability, and deep context awareness.
Host an Interactive Workshop or Keynote
Bring the Living Paper Roadshow to your organization or event. We host engaging keynotes, interactive workshops, and executive briefings exploring how measurement can give more energy than it takes.
Institutional & Peer Strategic Alliances
We partner with peer institutions to evolve and deepen the global evaluation canon. Together, we co-host time-bound thematic labs (such as Future Foresight in MEL or Regenerative Finance), co-author peer-reviewed publications, and cross-pollinate learning across global networks.
Fund & Resource the Movement
Following the launch of our Living Paper, our global commons has outgrown its volunteer container. We invite funding partners to help resource our 18-month roadmap, funding network stewardship, open-source resource development, practitioner micro-grants for Global Majority voices, and global equity stipends.
“We intentionally tried not to position ourselves as objective experts defining a new standard. Instead, we let a set of living questions guide our inquiry.”
From the Living Paper, Acknowledgements & Transparency
Unity Effect is a purpose-driven organisation working with foundations, public institutions, companies and social innovation networks on systems change, capacity building and evaluation.
We host and steward the Regenerative Evaluation Community of Practice — holding the space, the facilitation and the publishing infrastructure so that the work stays open and collectively owned. All consultancy mandates, strategy advisories, and commissioned evaluations are stewarded by us. Every client mandate directly feeds back into sustaining our open-source global commons.